The Bunker – News without the nonsense

As Britain approaches the horrific landmark of 100,000 COVID deaths, will lockdown hawks force the Government to reopen the economy too soon – again? Plus the worsening mess in customs, import and export. Best for Britain launches a campaign to get COVID support to the 3m workers that Sunak forgot. And it’s bad news for hedgehogs as Chris Grayling takes up their case. Naomi Smith sets out the week ahead with Andrew Harrison.  “The Covid Recovery Group is no more interested in our recovery from Covid than the European Research Group was in researching Europe.”  “The best things in life are free, but for everything else there’s ‘sovereignty’.” “People won’t wake up until they have to pay customs via chip-and-pin at the doorstep.”  “Rollback of workers’ rights is a Brexiteers’ wet dream.”  Presented and produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What does Englishness even mean in a land so splintered by class, geography, language and even post-colonial neuroses that it barely understands itself? And how far back would you draw the North-South divide? To 1066? Or maybe to the Jurassic period? James Hawes, novelist and author of the riotously readable Shortest History Of England, talks to The Observer’s Nick Cohen about England’s murky past and murkier future in a new occasional series of one-to-one conversations. “The Norman Conquests were a long, grinding and demeaning process for the English. It was the slow annihilation of a culture.” “England hasn’t existed as a separate state since 1707… Instead you had a polyglot empire of different nations.” “When English people stand up and say ‘We’ve lost our Empire’, well you never had one in the first place, mate.” “We were able to beat the French because we’d created this extraordinary combination of aristocrats and businessmen that we call ‘gentlemen’.”  “Even now, we automatically fall back into Northern gits and Southern bastards. This stuff runs deep.” “It’s been so long since the English have had to look at the problems of being English that I can’t see it ending peacefully.” Presented by Nick Cohen. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofrenijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

America’s new President faces four overlapping crises – the COVID pandemic, the teetering economy, festering racial inequality and looming climate change. Does Joe Biden have the political resources to turn them around? And what about the fifth crisis, the poisoning of American democracy under Trump? The FT’s Associate Editor Edward Luce – Author of The Retreat of Western Liberalism – tells Andrew Harrison about the horrors in Biden’s in-tray.  “The left wants heads on pikes – but Biden will resist that.”  “Biden is inheriting low hanging fruit with Trump’s poor vaccine policy.”  “Expect an information war, as much as anything else.”  “Rejoining Paris on day one is very symbolic. But Biden’s environmental policies are more ambitious than that.”  Presented by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dorian Lynskey, author of The Ministry Of Truth, talks to DJ Taylor, author of Orwell: The Life, about Blair’s underrated works and over-cited quotes, David Bowie’s 1984: The Musical, and why Orwell would have baulked at the modern misuse of 'Orwellian'.

On the last day of Donald Trump’s warped presidency, his niece Mary Trump – psychologist and author of Too Much And Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man – reflects on the making of a man who impressed his psychopathologies on a nation. How does a person get like this? What is it like when a family member places the entire world in peril? And could a defeated Trump represent an even worse danger to American democracy? “For the first time in his life he can’t spin a loss into a win. And it’s driving him crazy.” “At a very deep level, Donald knows he’s never been truly successful and has no skills.” “When Donald was elected I knew he would do to my country what he and his father had done to my family.” “What shocks me is that there are people on this planet who are weaker than Donald. I didn’t think that was possible” “In the election, if he was going down, he would try to take the rest of us with him. And that’s exactly what he did.” “Failure to live up Fred Trump’s demands got you destroyed. And that’s what happened to my dad.” “If the cameras disappear, Donald ceases to exist.”  Presented by Jude Rogers. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the Trump Presidency finally, finally ends, will the Republican Party be forced to choose between American democracy and the madness of the Trump-enraged base? Can Biden convince the world that America’s holiday from reason is over? Plus COVID spikes in Ireland, Singapore uses virus tracking to erode human rights, and Wikipedia is turns 20 [citation needed]. Ayesha Hazarika, Brian Klaas and Ahir Shah join Andrew Harrison for the weekly Bunker panel show. “Trump got more criticism from Meryl Streep than Vladimir Putin.” – Brian Klaas “Trump’s legacy is that we are permanently high on the sugar rush of dramatic news.” – Ayesha Hazarika “Should we call Trump a fascist? If there’s a boot stamping on my face I don’t care about the brand of the boot.” – Ahir Shah “Trump was a useful idiot to Putin, and every despot around the world.” – Ayesha Hazarika Presented and produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As America prepares to inaugurate Joe Biden as President, can his predecessor squeeze any more crookedness into his remaining days in power? And will the feared violence in American state capitols materialise? Plus as lockdown reacts its first mandatory review, the Government tries to cut benefits and working people’s rights. Alex Andreou sets up the week ahead. “Trump isn’t unusual. He’s every bully – every Biff from Back to the Future – I’ve ever met.” “This episode of Trump is over. But there are seasons more to come.” Presented and produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a special extra edition we ask, what will our politics be like after COVID (eventually) lifts? Will we find, like in 1945, that suddenly everything has changed? John Curtice, politics professor at Strathclyde University and senior fellow at think tank UK in a Changing Europe, tells Naomi Smith about the new economic consensus that could emerge from the post-Corona wreckage; how Labour should differentiate themselves from the Tories in a radically changed country; and whether education, welfare and the governance of the country itself could be transformed.  “Johnson is a meddler, an intervener, he wants to use the power of the state to get things done”  “Do not presume that COVID is going to change attitudes” “The arrival of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister marked the end of the neoliberal project in Britain” “There are plenty of centre-right voters in Scotland, they just don’t necessarily vote for the Conservatives” Presented by Naomi Smith. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Rarely have people sacrificed so much for so little.” The great uprisings across the Arab world in 2010-12 began in hope and ended in bitter disappointment, with hardline rule strengthened in many Arab countries. On the tenth anniversary of the event that began the Arab Spring, the overthrow of the Tunisian government, we talk to two experts – journalist for the BBC, Vice and LA Times Zahra Hankir and Khaled Diab, author of Islam For The Politically Incorrect – about what this great rebellion really achieved, how the pandemic has shown the weakness of these supposed strong regimes, and where the spirit of the Arab Spring could rise again.   “When people say the Arab Spring ‘failed’, it’s just a way to take the thunder out of the idea that people can make change happen.” – Khaled Diab “The Arab Spring is not done, as long as people and activists are still trying to make change happen. That spirit is still alive.” – Zahra Hankir “In the Arab world, it’s not the people who don’t get democracy – it’s the leaders.” – Khaled Diab “They couldn’t kill the idea, so they locked up or silenced everyone who advocated that idea.” – Khaled Diab Find out more about developments in the fight for freedom in the Arab world at:madamasr.comthepublicsource.orgaljumhuriya.netnewlinesmag.comPresented by Dorian Lynskey. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before right wing populists set about ruining the world, it was Latin America’s left wing populists – the likes of Chávez, Ortega and Castro – who rattled the West and threw their own countries into tumult. Why is the strongman’s hold on his country’s politics so unyielding? Will Grant, BBC Latin America correspondent and author of Populista!, joins us from Mexico City to explain how the people’s representatives became authoritarians and despots, what it’s like as a journalist targeted by a real-world army of footsoldiers as well as online trolls, and certain dictators’ early fondness for Blairism…  “It was a real baptism of fire living under Chávez. As the media, you were always in his line of fire.”  “We saw godlike status being bestowed on some very fallible men” “Some of these men are frighteningly militaristic and conservative… They created the conditions for the likes of Bolsonaro.”  “Reagan’s obsession with Ortega was huge… His fixation fuelled a war that killed thousands.”  “There’s a real appeal of the caudillo, the strongman who will come in and sort it all out.” “Living and working in these environments, it stretches you as a journalist like nothing else.”  Presented by Dorian Lynskey Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices